


Manifest

by micehell



Category: Johnny's Entertainment, TOKIO
Genre: AU (Finding Mr. Destiny fusion), Drama, Humor, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-24
Updated: 2011-03-24
Packaged: 2017-11-11 12:03:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/478360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/micehell/pseuds/micehell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes you take hold of your destiny.  Sometimes it grabs you, kicking and complaining all the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Manifest

He still had dreams. Of debuting, of making it big, of love. Especially of love. But it was harder than it had been, with so many of the Juniors having started younger than he did, with their having the right accent and the right look and the less awkward approach to everything. He was head and shoulders above any of them in terms of his guitar work and his composition, but then that wasn’t really what Johnny’s showcased, and a year into Joshima’s pretty much having foisted himself on the Jimusho, he was beginning to wonder if he’d ever fit in.

“Do your best,” he whispered to himself as he trailed his boss across the venue’s backstage, determined to shine this time, even if it did make him uncomfortable to be under Johnny-san’s eye.

“You, do your best,” Johnny-san threw out as he was about to leave. Then, almost as an afterthought, he pulled one of the other boys over who’d been milling around, waiting, and said, “Joshima-kun, you play guitar, right? Yamaguichi-kun here plays bass. You should talk.” And then he left.

Yamaguichi looked at him and sort of half-smiled. “Awkward, right? Our boss has a lot of talents, but introductions aren’t one of them.” He held out a hand, the half-smile growing bigger. “Let’s start again. I’m Yamaguichi and I play bass, so if you’re a guitarist, that’s pretty cool. There aren’t that many in the Jimusho who play, really.”

He was near the same age as Joshima, near the same height, so much about them on the same footing that it set Joshima’s head to reeling a little, unused to feeling comfortable at work. So unused to it that he forgot to answer at first, but he managed to get out, “I’m Joshima,” before Yamaguichi looked at him _too_ oddly.

From there it went smoother, going from both of them liking Boowy to both of them liking ramen, to the two of them meeting after the show. They were Juniors and living in the dorms with little to no privacy, and they were both deep in the closet by necessity, but they still managed to wind up in Joshima’s room, his roommate back at home for the night, and no one the wiser as Yamaguichi pushed him down on his bed and fucked him slow and sweet.

Whispering, voice taken by the need for discretion and by the need to come, Yamaguichi said, “Oh, fuck, feels so good. I can’t believe how lucky we got that your roommate was out for the night.”

Joshima was too close to reply, too sure he was going to burn or shatter or fucking come for years and years if Yamaguichi even so much as breathed on him one more time, the next thrust in enough to break Joshima’s silence, keening his pleasure into the pillow his face was buried in. He felt Yamaguichi come right after, warm inside him, but without making a sound to give them away.

“Lucky,” Yamaguichi whispered.

_Destiny_ , Joshima thought.

~*~

_Twenty years later_

There were only fifteen minutes left before Nagase was supposed to be on set, but he was lying on the couch in his trailer, still wearing his street clothes, and showing no signs of going anywhere when he said, “You should really just dump the jerk already.”

Joshima sighed, ignoring the comment in favor of trying to herd his wayward client into being on time for once. “Come on, get up. This director actually thinks you’re brilliant, so let’s try to maintain that completely erroneous illusion as long as possible.”

Nagase just laughed at the insult, but he did let Joshima pull him off the couch and start stripping off his shirt. He puffed his chest out a little, showing off, but frowned when Joshima pointed and asked, “Is that a gray hair?”

“No way,” but he kept trying to discreetly look at his chest until Joshima covered it up with the shirt the stylists had laid out for him. “I’m not old like you, I’m only…” he trailed off, frowning again as he worked it out in his head. “Fuck, I’m thirty-two. When the hell did I turn thirty-two?”

Sometimes Nagase was just too easy, but Joshima still sighed, wishing he hadn’t gotten him going when they were on such a short deadline. He pushed Nagase back onto the couch so he could pull off his sneakers, since apparently he was going to have to dress the overgrown child completely. “It was approximately two weeks before you sent me that strip-o-gram. You remember, the one where the stripper was an ex-sumo wrestler gone to seed, wearing nothing but a Speedo and forty penis-shaped balloons that he popped in time to _I Touch Myself_.”

It had the desired effect of making Nagase forget about the gray hair comment, but Joshima had a hard time getting pants on him with the way he was doubled over laughing.

He was only a couple of minutes late, though, when Joshima finally pushed him out the door, the smile still on his face. But the little boy he sometimes acted like was hidden away in favor of the professional that Joshima had managed for the last sixteen years.

Sixteen years that had let Nagase learn all his avoidance techniques, so it wasn’t a surprise to Joshima when he turned back and said, “Aren’t you tired of being his secret? And not even a secret love, but just a secret fuck? He’s an asshole and I’m never going to regret that time I punched him even if it does mean I never get invited on any of his shows. You should try it yourself one day.”

Over dinner after filming, Joshima tried to explain why he stayed, but it was complicated even in his head and sounded stupid when he actually said it out loud. “I believe… I believe in destiny. I know you don’t, but I do. And I know he left before you ever entered the agency, but I met someone when I’d first joined who… well, it _was_ destiny.”

Nagase sighed into his ramen before taking a big bite, not even finishing chewing before he asked, “If it was destiny, why isn’t he with you then?”

Joshima clucked at him. “Finish chewing before you talk, please.”

“Yes, Mom,” Nagase answered with his mouth full.

Knowing it was years too late to train Nagase into having any manners, he just shrugged. “He had to go. He was eighteen by then, and neither of us was getting much work and we were both flat broke all the time. It was hard, being in a band that you knew had talent but not getting any attention because you weren’t flashy enough or pretty enough.”

Nagase nodded, understanding even though it hadn’t happened like that for him. Instead he’d been too tall, too quiet, too manic, too _something_ with every band they’d put him with. Johnny-san had even tried him as a solo act, but all those toos he’d been stood out even more when he was alone, so even though he’d had a good voice and a great face, he’d never got anywhere. If he hadn’t gotten lucky with the acting, Nagase would have been just another failed Junior. Just like Joshima.

Joshima believed in destiny, but it didn’t mean that destiny was always kind. “He asked me to go with him, but I stayed.”

“Still chasing your dream?”

He shrugged, because that was part of it for sure, but he knew he could never explain all the reasons. He traced out the kanji for destiny in the condensation from his beer, unreadable in the water, but there all the same. He remembered feeling both sad and excited at the time, could still feel both of them in his blood even now. “If it’s meant to be, I’ll see him again. That’s how I could just let him go without asking him to stay, and how I could just stay and not go with him. We met by chance the first time, just because we happened to be standing near the boss at the right moment. If it’s destiny, we’ll meet that way again.”

Nagase smiled at him, his much larger hand warmly engulfing Joshima’s. “That’s just so…”

“Beautiful?”

“Stupid.”

Client or not, Joshima felt a (completely justified) glee when he stabbed the idiot’s over-large hand with his chopsticks.

~*~

Nagase was bored beyond all previously boring levels of bored. Three hours of waiting in the station’s supposed VIP waiting room (which, since this so wasn’t a big-time station, only meant that the coffee wouldn’t kill you, the seats still far too small for anything but a midget to be comfortable in) for a promo that he was beginning to think wasn’t going to happen, and he was going crazy. He’d even taken to sending Joshima out on stupid errands like getting him kurogoma Pocky, because it was hard to find and would guarantee Joshima was as irritated as Nagase was, but he was still _monumentally_ bored.

He liked to think that was why he wound up sneaking out into the halls looking for anything that wasn’t the same old waiting room, though, really, he very well might have done that even if he wasn’t bored. As it was, though, he walked into one of the stranger friendships in his life, and, fuck, he was friends with Tsuyoshi, and if that wasn’t weird enough for any three people, then Nagase was Momotaro sailing his own ass down the river.

At first glance, he’d have never guessed he’d wind up being friends with Taichi, who was short, sarcastic, a little manic, and, at the time, being handed his walking papers from some restaurant review type of show he’d been on. Nagase knew he wasn’t the smartest person who’d ever hit the planet, but he figured he at least had one up on this guy, since he at least knew better than to tell the person you were begging not to fire you that their wife had hit on you because said person was so lousy in bed.

Taichi at least seemed to know better, afterward, when the office door was slammed in his face, catching the edge of his foot and sending him hopping down the hall to run right into Nagase, sending them both to the floor.

It wasn’t the most auspicious of meetings, really, but it did have the magic of Taichi offering to buy Nagase a beer (even though it was just then eleven in the morning), which, even though he knew Joshima would kill him (not to mention the director of the show he was promoting), Nagase took him up on.

The beer turned into lunch and the lunch turned into a futsal invite which then became a regular thing, so even though Nagase was pretty sure Joshima took some actual skin off his back with the scolding he gave (and that his director took the rest by the time he was done), he figured it was worth it.

After all, how many chance meetings wound up getting you a new, if very weird, friend?

~*~

Taichi looked at Mabo’s latest painting, still wet on the easel, and shook his head. “It looks like what was in my toilet after the last time I ate Aya’s cooking.”

Mabo was torn. On the one hand he wanted to protest the implied insult to his painting, but on the other hand, while he loved Aya dearly, his wife’s cooking _was_ toxic, which, coincidentally enough, was what the painting was titled. It was pretty much the first time anyone had ever guessed the meaning of one of his paintings, so he was oddly happy even though he knew Taichi hadn’t really meant to.

He was less torn when Aya chose that moment to come into the studio, lighting into her brother as only an older sister could. Mabo might have accidentally let it slip to her that his brother-in-law had opened up a new business, using Mabo’s studio as his office, which would normally make him feel a little guilty, since, though he loved Aya dearly, his wife was a little psychotic and always took Taichi’s inability to hold a job for any length of time to heart (or to hand, really, the way she was slapping him into the couch). But it wasn’t like Taichi didn’t have the _ability_ to keep a job if he wanted to, and he certainly wasn’t setting off on the road to success by opening a ‘find your first love’ detective agency, either, so he could kind of see Aya’s point. Not to mention which Taichi _had_ dissed his painting.

After Aya had finished expressing her opinion of his new business venture and gone on to terrorize someone else, Taichi asked, “I know I introduced the two of you, but, seriously, how do you stay married to her? She may look small and dainty, but she’s a demon, man.”

Mabo shrugged. “She doesn’t mind if I’m out all hours of the day. In fact, she kind of insists on it, which sounds bad, but it does keep the mystery in our marriage. Plus she only hits _me_ if I waste too much money on paint, since apparently the only art I produce that this heathen world likes is shonen-ai doujinshi… well, or when I ask her to.”

Taichi put his hands over his ears and started shouting, “Na na na na, I can’t hear you, you over-sharing bastard!”

“Well, if you don’t want me to tell you about what she likes for me to do to her, then answer my question, why this first love obsession all of a sudden. It’s not like your usual scams, oops, my bad, I mean _job_.”

Taichi looked like he was about ready to bolt, but Mabo figured he had him over a barrel, since it was his studio after all. Plus Taichi was too dependent on Mabo’s cooking skills, not to mention always lacking enough money to buy anything for himself, so he’d have to spill eventually.

With a put-upon sigh, Taichi gave in. “I hadn’t had any luck finding anything after I got booted off the food show, so I thought, ‘Hey, why not go into business for myself,’ figuring that way I at least wouldn’t get fired again. I couldn’t decide on what to do, though, but right as I was about to give up and finally become a host like I was obviously born to be – and stop laughing, I could so be a host – I just happened to meet this girl I used to like.”

Mabo snorted, still half-choked from the thought of Taichi’s sharp tongue being able to charm pretty much anyone into buying overpriced champagne, and now dying again over the idea that Taichi had ever liked a woman.

Having known him since they were both more-cocky-than-it-turned-out-they-had-a-right-to-be teens, Taichi was fluent in Mabo’s snorts, and shot him the bird at this one. “I swing both ways, dude. Just because you’ve never actually _seen_ me with a woman is no reason to think I _couldn’t_ be. And considering you’re married to a demon twelve years older than you, who apparently smacks you around for pleasure, I don’t want to hear anything about my love life.”

That got him another snort, but this one was correctly interpreted as _fair enough, now keep talking_ , since he did. “You remember when you were in the Jimusho how they used to have that gaggle of wannabe actresses they kept around to play the background parts, like girlfriends or schoolmates or whatever, on the skits? Well, there was one when I first got there that was, like, wow. I mean everyone liked her. Pretty, great tits, and she was not only smart, she was also smart enough to know who to play dumb for.

Anyway, she conned me into buying her lunch even though I was broke and then tried to con me into buying a ‘business consultation’ from her. She promised to make me get ahead, and I’m not sure whether I was supposed to read that as innuendo of some type with the way she kept pushing those great tits at me as she said it, but before I had to tell her I _mostly_ swung the other way, the cops came and tried to arrest her.”

Mabo rolled his eyes. “Being you, you acted stupid and got in their way to give her a chance to get away?”

Taichi smiled. “Ah, you know me so well. They took me down to the station to get my statement, since apparently she’d been scamming a lot of other failed Juniors from my time, plus some of the instructors that had been around then. Not Sanche, of course, since he’s never even known that you _could_ swing in that direction, but that one weird guy that used to tap out the beats for him using a shenai and sometimes _accidentally_ whacked the kids if they weren’t keeping to the pace.”

“Ooh, yeah, I remember him. I had bruises for months from that bastard.”

“Well then you’ll be happy to know that she took him for about 500,000 yen. But anyway, all those poor suckers got into an argument about how she had been their first love and all, basically almost beating on each other insisting it was them, so I asked what it mattered, right? I mean, who cares, especially at this point, when she’s scammed all of them? But they all turned on me then, insisting that of _course_ it mattered, that there was no other love like first love, and all kinds of other crap that I was ignoring when all of a sudden it hit me that if people were that freaky about it, they very well might pony up with some cash to have a second chance at it. And here I am.”

Mabo looked around at his studio, full of his paintings that no one wanted, his drafting board filled with way more guy on guy sex than a straight man should probably draw, and a tiny, very disorganized desk which, besides the remains of Taichi’s lunch (cup noodles), only had a bunch of junk mail, a computer on its last legs, and no phone except the cell Taichi carried like a lifeline, but that hadn’t rung once all day. “Yeah, here you are, all right.”

~*~

After Masa left, Joshima washed up, taking his time, careful of the bruises. The sex this time had been hard and angry at first, then slow and sad. He’d like to blame Nagase for that, but he knew it was his for staying in a bad relationship for years longer than he should have, and then for breaking it off without any more warning than he had.

It was just that all of Nagase’s talk had made him think, about how even hidden relationships should be fun and fair, with both partners as committed to it as they could be, even if they had to sometimes date someone else to keep up the illusion of heterosexuality, and that there should be something to it besides just a convenient dick and hole. And, okay, it wasn’t like Nagase had actually had any closeted relationships (seeing as, except for his first love, Nagase tended to be attracted to the tough, brawny type of guy, whereas the ones that were attracted to Nagase tended to be pretty twinks), but Joshima had to admit he was still right about it all. When he realized he couldn’t even remember the last time he and Masa had done anything other than check into a random anonymous love hotel, fuck, and then leave again, he’d had to wonder what he was doing.

Later, when a liter of bourbon had numbed his ass and his tongue and at least a little of the sadness, he called Nagase and said, “It’s not that I mind waiting for destiny. It’s just… sometimes it’s so lonely.”

There was nothing from the other end of the line for the longest time, until Joshima had almost forgotten who he called, but then he heard Nagase’s voice, soft and wistful in a way it rarely was, saying, “Yeah, I know.”

Joshima laid his head on the bar and passed his cell phone to the barkeeper so that someone who actually knew where he was could give Nagase directions. Maybe it was lonely to wait for his destiny, but at least the wood of the bar was warm and soft against his cheek and Nagase’s voice would be loud in his ear as he took him home, complaining all the way about having to play manager to his manager, and Joshima thought that there were worse fates he could have had.

~*~

“I’m dying.”

Taichi grinned, dripping sweat and breathing hard himself, but still feeling good. “Can you hold off for another thirty minutes, because we’ll be short a man if you died before the end of the game.”

Nagase pursed his lips, considering, then said, “Well, if you were to buy me lunch after the game, I might consider it. Just for you, of course.”

“You’ll hold off dying for a cheap lunch and just because I asked? There’s something wrong with your standards. I’m not sure I want you on my futsal team now.”

Sitting up from where he’d been dripping all over the bench, Nagase shrugged. “Fine. I’ll just call your sister and tell her what you’re really doing today.”

Taichi frowned at the guy he now regretted introducing to his family. Who knew that big monkey body and dopey grin hid someone so evil? No wonder he and Mabo got along so well. “I love your attitude problem. Really. I want you on my team forever.”

Nagase laughed, standing up as their turn on the field got closer. “Love you, too, man. Come on, let’s finish this game and then I’ll buy you lunch for once. Oh, wait, I mean like usual.”

It actually bothered Taichi a little that Nagase always wound up buying, even though he knew the guy had way more money than he did. It was just that it should have been Taichi, should have been the sempai who paid. At one time Taichi really would have been sempai, too, if he hadn’t left the Jimusho just a month before Nagase joined. But he’d been too tired of being moved from group to group and never quite fitting, and too bored with always having to hide the fact that he was fonder of his fellow Juniors than he was of the girls that flocked around them. Or maybe he’d just been too restless (like he still was), constantly trying to find something he couldn’t quite name. So he’d wound up leaving before he’d even had a chance to meet the guy who had turned out to be pretty much his best friend.

Well, and before he’d ever had a chance to make money like Nagase, too, which is why, even with his slightly dented pride, he never balked when the guy offered to buy him lunch. Considering it was almost always ramen, and usually at a cart at that, he was at least a cheap date.

He was just finishing the last of his soup when he remembered that he hadn’t told Nagase about his new business. He handed him one of the cards Mabo had made for him, looking far nicer than a business that had only had two (non-paying) clients really should have. (One of them had wanted him to find her _husband’s_ first love, since apparently he wouldn’t stop talking about her. Which sounded scary enough on the face of it, but was even worse when she’d told Taichi what he should do when he found her. The other had wanted to meet his first love from another _life_ , apparently taking Taichi’s totally erroneous advertising claim that he could find anyone completely to heart.)

Nagase took it, barely looking at it since there was still food nearby, which Taichi could believe was Nagase’s first and last love the way he fascinated on it. He did come up for air long enough to ask, “Is this another scam?”

Taichi once again regretted introducing Nagase to Mabo, since it was his brother-in-law who’d shared some of Taichi’s less… reputable jobs. “No, dude, it’s totally legit. I find people’s long lost first loves for them. Reuniting them with the one they’ve compared all their other loves to, the one they always wondered if maybe they shouldn’t have stayed with. Hell, it’s like I’m performing a public service instead of a business.”

He’d really just been joking in telling Nagase about his new business, but the way he sat up at what Taichi had said, ignoring even the last bit of pork left over in his bowl, surprised Taichi. “What, you want to find yours? I have special rates for friends even.”

Nagase mock shuddered. “Not just no, but fuck no. I see mine almost every week and he’s a pain in my ass. Keeps saying I should finally debut with him, do some special project or some such shit, even after all this time. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to be in a band, even now, but how do you tell someone you’re at least still fond of that if you played with them, you’d wind up having to do their type of music, and, fuck, you really hate their type of music, and yet still have that come out sounding kind of nice and stuff?”

Taichi laughed. “It’s a quandary, I’ll give you that. But what’s with the light bulb over your head then?”

Nagase smiled, the one that made him look like a cat who’d not only got the canary, but was running a special breeding program so that he’d never be canary-less again. “Because I think you’re going to finally help me show my manager the light, short stuff.”

Finally finding a real first client (with real first money) made Taichi so happy that he _almost_ overlooked what a great big jerk his friend was. “Just so you know, I’m charging you extra for the short remark.”

~*~

Joshima seriously didn’t want to even meet Nagase’s friend, let alone meet him in what looked like an art studio with some of the most horrendous paintings he had ever seen mixed in with some amazingly hot line drawings of pretty guys having sex. Taichi himself turned out to be an odd mix of both those themes, with a face and body that was definitely attractive, and a personality that was annoying as hell.

The face and body were losing ground fast the more he got sarcastic. “You knew this guy for almost a year, and yet all you really know about him is his name and the fact that he was cute? Are you sure this was your first love? Because he sounds more like your first crush to me.”

Joshima counted to ten, reminding himself that Nagase had told him to come and Nagase signed his paychecks. When that didn’t work as well as he’d hoped, he asked, “Did Nagase become friends with you just to make himself look less irritating by comparison?”

Taichi shrugged. “He’s friends with me because of my sparkling wit and excellent fashion sense.” He looked at Joshima’s ascot pointedly. “The irritation thing was probably just a bonus.”

Which actually made Joshima laugh. It wasn’t that he wasn’t still irritated by the whole thing, but sixteen years of knowing Nagase had trained him into being able to be amused at the same time. “This is really a waste of time. I told Nagase this already, but he rarely listens, so let’s see if you can. I believe in destiny, and it’s called destiny because it’ll happen as it’s supposed to, so why waste money trying to find it?”

When all he got was silence as a reply, Joshima sighed in relief, pleased that even though Taichi was more irritating than his client, at least he wasn’t as stubborn. He thought that right up until Taichi shrugged again and asked, “Maybe it’s your destiny to waste money to find your love again, did you ever think of that?”

Joshima wanted to argue with that, but he had to admit it was a point.

“And, anyway, it’s Nagase’s money you’re wasting, so what the hell, right?”

Joshima laughed again, not even all that irritated this time. If Nagase wanted to pay him to waste his money, what the hell indeed.

~*~

Taichi cursed the fates who had seen fit to waste a face and body like Nagase’s on someone who didn’t know how to use them. If Taichi had had that kind of ammunition, he could have ruled the world. As it was, Taichi had told Nagase to flirt his way into the employment records at Johnny’s, thereby taking the quick (and cheap) method of finding their prey. Taichi could have then found out where he was now, sounded him out about meeting his long lost love, and everything could have been settled in time for an early dinner. Instead what he’d gotten was a list of last known addresses of all the Juniors who’d been named Tatsuya, and Nagase had only gotten that from a custodian he’d slipped some money to (and who obviously didn’t know how to use the computer very well), since he’d wound up accidentally insulting the woman he’d been flirting with. How the entire agency didn’t know the guy was gay Taichi would never know.

He also didn’t know why there were so many guys named Tatsuya around, either, but he’d at least managed to eliminate ten names from the list, so that only left… fuck, another twenty-five for them to get through.

He could have just done the checks on his own, finding out their family names before he called Joshima in, but there was a chance that Yamaguichi had been a stage name (and fuck the world if _Tatsuya_ turned out to be the stage name and he had to send Nagase back to get another list), so it was easier just to have the guy with him to double check. That he enjoyed seeing if he could irritate Joshima enough to make him laugh again was just icing on the cake.

By the time they’d got through the first five on the list, both of them were tired beyond belief. Apparently all these guys named Tatsuya had not only failed to graduate from Juniordom, but were also living in all the most inaccessible places in Tokyo besides. After walking for miles upon miles, even Taichi’s stubborn resolve to find this guy fast took a back seat to sitting down and drinking something ice cold.

Joshima, weird ideas about love or not, had at least been raised right, inviting him to lunch and a cold beer, and since the guy was obviously older than Taichi, he didn’t even have to feel guilty about it this time. He raised his glass to Joshima’s and said, “Here’s hoping we find your destiny soon.”

Their glasses clinked together and Joshima answered him with, “Here’s hoping that Nagase and your brother-in-law don’t accidentally burn down the studio or some other fun thing like that while I’m gone.”

As much as Taichi would have liked to defend Mabo, he couldn’t say it wasn’t a possibility. Evil enough on their own, he was a little hesitant about Mabo filling in as Nagase’s gopher while Joshima was gone. His greatest comfort was that Aya would probably be mollified by the money Taichi had made if the two of them did wind up on the evening news.

They managed to cross another two names off the list before they called it a day. And if at the end of it Taichi still couldn’t figure out how someone so awkward and kind of funny looking had ever made it into Johnny’s, he’d at least discovered the guy really did have a nice laugh.

~*~

Two days later they’d worked their way through Tatsuyas number eight through twelve before Mabo called them in a panic saying the world had ended and then hanging up on them. Before Joshima could even call back to find out just a tad bit more information, Nagase had called and told them the apocalypse was on hold for the moment, so they should just stay and enjoy themselves before he hung up on them too.

Taichi rolled his eyes and said, “Yeah, that’s going to happen.”

Which made Joshima laugh even while he was still thinking about throttling them both. He was surprised at how nice it was to have someone to share the thought with. It had always been pointless to complain to Nagase about the things he did to make Joshima old before his time, since one) it was a little strange, and two) Nagase just pretended he was listening anyway. And Masa had never really wanted to hear about Joshima’s day, preferring to talk about himself or what he wanted Joshima to do to his dick if he said anything at all. But Taichi was easy to talk to, and his laugh was nice after Joshima told him that managing Nagase was something akin to herding cats.

It was also easy to listen to Taichi overshare about Mabo’s oddities, and about his sister, and how strange life had been in Johnny’s and even stranger afterward. And maybe the guy was still irritating a lot of the time, sarcastic to the point that Joshima didn’t have to wonder why he’d had a hard time keeping a job, but it was still kind of fun to have someone to help deal with the (what turned out to be not very apocalyptic) apocalypse.

Over dinner later that night, Nagase had said they should form a club and call themselves the Ex-Johnny’s, which had then turned into a squabble when Mabo had pointed out that Nagase couldn’t be in the club since he was still actually _in_ Johnny’s. Before Joshima could step in and calm things down, Taichi had smacked them both on the head and said neither one of them could be in the club since they were both such doofuses. When Nagase had put on his patently earnest expression that was a guarantee he was a lying and said meekly, “Yes, Dad,” in the same way he always called Joshima Mom… well, Joshima had to admit that that was kind of fun, too.

~*~

If you’d asked Taichi, he would have said that the last person in the world he’d like would be someone who was sweet. Give him someone who could give as good as they got any day. And there was no doubt about it that Joshima was sweet… and yet.

For someone who’d irritated him at first (too prissy and passive and really poorly dressed, making even his better suits look cheap), he was actually kind of starting to like the guy. He just seemed to take everything in stride, even when he acted offended by something one of the others said, like he knew he was strange, but couldn’t be bothered to do more than be amused by it.

Even more amazing was that even though Mabo, Nagase, and Taichi all bore a healthy fear of Aya, Joshima had complimented her cooking and had her smiling and fawning over him, and Taichi was pretty sure that either had to be a sign that the guy was just about too sweet to live (which he might not, if he’d actually _swallowed_ any of Aya’s food), or that he was actually a demon in disguise, one or the other.

But it wasn’t until the day they’d gone to look for Tatsuya nineteen through whatever and found a funeral going on at number twenty-two, that Taichi figured out that maybe sweet really was kind of his thing after all.

“You don’t have to go in, you know. I can find out if there’s even a Tatsuya still living here-“

Taichi cut himself off when he realized what he’d just said, but before he could correct it with something potentially even more foot-in-mouth, Joshima just shook his head. “I’ll go and see. I need to see.”

He went alone, and came back thirty minutes later smelling of incense and with tears in his eyes. But he shook his head when Taichi asked if it was the right one. “No, not my Tatsuya. But he was someone else’s.”

It turned out that Joshima had a pretty high tolerance for bourbon, better than Taichi would have expected. Taichi did try to curb some of the drinking as the evening went on, but Joshima just shook his head again, the tears rolling down his face now. “He wasn’t mine, but I still wish he weren’t dead. I still wish that someone else wasn’t going to be as lonely as I am.”

Maybe it was the alcohol that Taichi had drank trying to keep Joshima company. Maybe it was the low lights of the bar. Maybe it was just because he knew what that loneliness felt like, the sense that there was always something missing that you could never quite find. Whatever it was, it was right at that moment that Taichi finally understood what had gotten Joshima into Johnny’s, and made him wonder why’d they ever let him leave.

When Joshima started to call Nagase to take him home, Taichi took the phone and closed it, putting it in his pocket as he said, “You don’t need to call him. I’ll take you home.”

~*~

For all his snark, Taichi was actually pretty nice, or maybe Joshima’s standards were just so low it didn’t matter. But when Taichi managed to wrangle him through the door of his bedroom, compact muscles not even straining too much at nearly having to carry his weight, instead of gratefully accepting the blow job Joshima was trying to give him, he actually pulled away, face pained and jeans tenting, saying, “Hey, while that feels good… fuck, really really good, I didn’t bring you home to take advantage of you.”

Joshima laughed, the bourbon and need like fire in his veins, the feel of Taichi’s large hands on his arms, carefully holding him back, like a red flag to a bull. “Maybe I let you take me home so I could take advantage of you, did you ever think of that?”

Taichi managed to hold out for another moment, apparently considering Joshima’s point, but when Joshima licked his lips, pouting a little to show them to their full advantage, Taichi caved like… well, like a man who really wanted to get laid.

He tasted good, the bourbon they’d been drinking mixing well with the bitter salt of precome and the musty tang of dick, and, fuck, Joshima loved the taste, loved the feel of Taichi losing control and pushing further into his mouth, hips jerking with need. Loved when Taichi pushed him down on the bed, asking if he minded, and fucking him hard when he didn’t. As drunk as Joshima was, he still came at the feel of Taichi’s hands jacking him off, at the feel of Taichi’s dick pressed so deep inside.

They woke up early for water and aspirin and another round of sex, hiding beneath the cover afterward from the early morning sun.

Joshima could only dimly see Taichi in the murky light, but then he was enigma even when he was fully visible, so full of sarcasm and cyncism and all kinds of other isms, but sweet in bed and kind when he thought no one would notice. The sweetness reminded him of Tatsuya, years lost, and it made Joshima’s heart twinge at the reminder. He found himself wishing he could have met Taichi when they were still Juniors, or even that Nagase had met the man years before. He didn’t think he’d have been so lonely while waiting all these years if he’d had someone like Taichi around, so much more fun to fuck with, so much better to fuck than Masa had ever been.

“Why did you start your business? Did you look for your first love, too?”

Taichi’s eyes had been closing, and Joshima should have let him have more sleep, but he was happy when Taichi answered him instead. “Nah. That’s over and done. No need to look for him.”

Joshima threaded his fingers through Taichi’s, loving how long the other man’s were, how broad and strong the hand was. Nagase had told him Taichi was a keyboardist and you could see it the lean muscle and flex of his fingers. Knowing he was probably being nosy, but figuring it was only fair to know about Taichi’s first love since Taichi knew all about his, he asked, “What happened?”

Taichi didn’t answer him, his eyes closed, and Joshima wondered if he’d fallen asleep, but then the hand he was holding tightened and Taichi sighed. “It was one of my kouhais at the agency. He was younger than I was by a couple of years, teeth too big for his mouth and ears too big even for a monkey’s, but he was adorable all the same. He thought I was funny and smart, which, really, nowhere near enough people do, though I have no idea why.”

Joshima very solemnly said, “I have no idea why either.”

He could see the white of Taichi’s teeth, so he knew he was smiling, but his tone was still wistful as he continued. “Both of us were too young, and both of us were too male, of course, so all I did was look, but he noticed. Confronted me about it one day. So I panicked and kissed him, almost just to get him to shut up, really. But… well, he kissed me back, and then I really panicked. All I could think about then was how wrong it could go, and how embarrassing it was, and, fuck, how young he was. So when I saw him the next day, I didn’t even say a word to him. Just chickened right out, even when I saw how hurt he was.

I’d already been having problems with the agency, tired of getting passed around from group to group like some kind of low-class party favor and just never really feeling like I belonged with any of them, and after that… I just went ahead and left.”

He was pretty sure it was a weird thing to say to the guy you’d just had wonderfully dirty sex with, but the romantic in Joshima still wanted to say, “You might meet again. If it’s your destiny.”

Taichi snorted, making the cover shake with the force of it. “Been there, done that. After I left, I was still pretty full of myself, still thinking I could make it in music, so I formed a band. I called it Toraji and was so sure we’d make it big. I figured once I was famous, once I could hold my head up as something other than a Johnny’s washout, then I’d be brave enough to go back and tell the guy what I’d wanted to say after the kiss.

In the end, though, even after a year of practice and self-promotion, we only had a couple of club gigs and a single we had to pay for ourselves, that pretty much only Mabo and our bassist’s mother actually bought. The icing on the cake was that at our last gig, when we all knew it wasn’t going to happen, there in the audience was the very person I’d been trying to impress. And as embarrassing as it is for me to say this, for a moment I actually thought it might be destiny. But then reality kicked back in and I saw he was holding hands with this other guy. Turned out he’d left Johnny’s, too, hating having to be in the closet all the time. He’d waited for me for, he said. Waited for six months, but then he figured I really hadn’t cared, so he’d found someone who had.”

Joshima knew they should get up, that they had work to get to, or at least he did. But he couldn’t help giving Taichi one more kiss and what comfort he could. “If he’d truly been the one, then it would have happened. It’s just destiny.”

Taichi threw the cover off, and even though Joshima couldn’t see it, he could hear the eye-roll in Taichi’s voice. “Fuck destiny. It didn’t work because I didn’t have the balls to tell him to his face what I wanted.”

~*~

After the fifth time he called and got voicemail, Taichi began to suspect that something was up. A call to Nagase, that went right through with no problems, was pretty much the clincher.

“He’s been droning on and on about destiny for the last two days, and how everything will work out like it’s supposed to. So I told him it was his destiny to go to Kyoto and buy me some powdered tea azuki bean Pocky ‘cause I was tired of hearing about it. What the fuck did you do that set him off?”

Taichi knew that saying, “Nothing,” with that whine in his voice probably just made him sound defensive, but no way was he talking about his sex life with someone who would eat azuki bean Pocky.

“ _Nothing_ like you guys just got drunk together and passed out at his place afterward, or _nothing_ like you got drunk and fucked liked rabbits and then passed out at his place afterward?”

Taichi slapped his phone closed hard enough to make it clack, imagining Nagase’s head getting crushed in it. He added Mabo’s head in there for good measure, since that’s who he’d called to pick him up from Joshima’s place and that was who’d obviously been gossiping like the bored housewife he was. 

As satisfying as the imaginary death and dismemberment was, though, it didn’t really settle the uneasy feeling he had in the pit of his gut. Not that he was some dainty little virgin who was shocked that guy she’d given it up for wasn’t calling her back. Hell, most of the sex he’d had in his life had been casual, and it wasn’t like it had been anything other than that, really. Just drunk sex after a long day, which was about on the same intimacy level as a friendly handshake if they’d been sober.

No, Taichi decided as he made a half-hearted effort to make his desk look neat just in case a client should happen to come in, he wasn’t bothered by anything that had happened that night. It was just he was anxious to check out those last three names on the list, three names that could potentially belong to the jerk who wouldn’t answer his phone’s destined true love or whatever the idiot was labeling it as. It was just the professional in him wanting to finish the job he’d been paid for, that was all.

Taichi wound up throwing everything on his desk in the garbage can, piece by piece, taking a step back for each successful basket. When he ran out of ammunition, he took to throwing Mabo’s uglier paintings (which was basically all of them) in the closet, not even caring if they broke since it could only be an improvement. When he had nothing left to throw, he told the quiet phone sitting on his desk, “I just want to get it over with. That’s all it is.”

~*~

Joshima could have told Nagase to shove his Pocky, but he’d been just as tired of hearing himself talk as Nagase had been, and a trip to Kyoto for Pocky was by no means the strangest thing Nagase had asked him for over the years. If he’d wanted to, he probably could have found the damn candy in Tokyo somewhere, regional flavor or no, but the hum of the train flying over the tracks, the passing scenery that flashed by, the quiet murmur of conversations that weren’t about destiny, or Taichi, or Tatsuya, or Taichi, or the nagging little voice in the back of his head (that sounded annoyingly like Nagase) that kept saying he’d wasted _years_ waiting for something that he should never have let go in the first place, or Taichi… really, he just needed the break.

But the view outside the window passed by too quickly, just like the years had started to. The hum of the train reminded him of Tatsuya’s bass, the low kthump kthump that held Joshima on beat, that underscored his guitar’s higher growl. And the face he could see reflected in the window, tired and lonely (and needing a haircut, damn it), reminded him that he’d made his choice years ago, determined to believe in what would be, and _needing_ to believe in it now. 

He got back to Tokyo late, dropping a carrier bag full of every flavor of Pocky he could find, azuki bean included, on Nagase’s lap, ignoring his breathless whoof as it hit him in the stomach and cut off the questions he’d been starting to ask.

It was later still by the time he tracked Taichi down at the bar they’d been to the last time. 

It was probably too late by the time he told Taichi, “The job’s over. You can keep the money for all the work you’ve done. And… thank you. I appreciate… well, I had… a good time.”

Which wasn’t what he’d meant to say, especially as it made what they’d done sound like either a day at the amusement park or some kind of bad date. But seeing as Taichi was looking irritated already, Joshima figured any editing he did at that point would just make it worse.

“That’s it? Three names away from finding what you’ve been waiting for all this time and you’re just calling it off? Maybe this is destiny’s way of being fulfilled. Or… well, maybe it’s even telling you to stop waiting and move on to something else. Or maybe all this destiny stuff is just utter bullshit and you let someone you loved go without telling them what you felt, just like I did.”

It had taken Joshima most of the day to stop thinking some of those very things and he wasn’t going to let Taichi screw him up now. So he shook his head and meant to say, “Maybe I’ll see you later,” and instead wound up saying, “If it is utter bullshit, then I’ve been _wrong_ about a belief that I’ve held dear my _entire_ life. Can’t you understand why I don’t want to let it go?”

Taichi smiled the same sarcastic smile he had the first time he’d met Joshima, nothing like the sweet one he’d worn when he kissed him under the covers. “I don’t, but then maybe I just can’t. I’ve never really had faith in anything, so maybe that kind of thing is just beyond me, man. And that lack of faith has cost me a lot over the years, at least according to my sister. Jobs I let go, jobs I couldn’t keep, boyfriends coming then going. Nothing’s ever stuck. But you know the great thing my life of complete and utter failure has taught me? That you can always start over. And maybe that’s something that you don’t understand.” 

As Joshima watched Taichi walk away, he told himself he was right in this. That he’d been right in this all along. He’d always believed in destiny, and he always would.

He was just going to have to accept that it would also always be his destiny to wonder just how wrong he was.

~*~

The last thing Taichi wanted when he got back to his office was company, but not only was Mabo there, he had someone with him. Taichi politely nodded when Mabo introduced him, but he was on autopilot, everything Mabo and whoever it was said just sounds in his ears. All that he could hear was Joshima basically telling him to take a hike, just like pretty much every other boyfriend of his had done. He’d been an idiot to think this time would be any different, really. He thought maybe being unlucky in love was _his_ destiny, but then had to laugh at himself.

He was still laughing when Mabo smacked him on the top of his head. “Hey, Earth to Taichi! Man, stop being a freak for a second when I actually got you some business.”

Taichi rubbed the sore spot, wishing at least one person in his family would stop with the hitting. “What business?”

“When I went down to Manhatten’s today, they were packed, so they were having anyone alone sit at tables together. I wound up getting in a conversation with the guy at my table and found out we were both ex-Johnny’s, which was kind of a cool coincidence, but then I found out he wanted to look up his first love and it was like it was fate or something. So I brought him here, and now we’re at the part where you have a client, so you should actually stop laughing like a crazy person and act like you know what you’re doing.”

When Taichi turned to look at him, the guy held out his hand and smiled. “I’m the potential client Mabo doesn’t want you to spazz in front of. Though since I was a member of Johnny’s at one time, it’s not like I’ve never been around the crazy, or, really, it’s not like I’ve never been a fair share of crazy myself, so don’t worry about it too much.”

Taichi laughed in his best non-crazy person fashion. Whatever this guy had done after leaving the agency, it looked like he’d done all right for himself, but that he hadn’t let it go to his head. Jeans and a surfer shirt that were high-end name brands, but looked like they’d actually seen the beach instead of just being for show. A hint of heavy silver at his neck and on his ear, but nothing showy. And he carried himself with confidence, but could laugh at himself. Taichi could see why Mabo had started talking to him. “It’s been a… weird day. But what was it that you needed?”

“When I was with Johnny’s, I’d met a guy. He was more than a little crazy himself, but… I don’t know, we just clicked, you know? When it became obvious we weren’t ever going to get a real chance at debuting, I just wanted to get out of there. To not have to just pretend to be friends anymore. But he wanted to stay. Said he had dreams, and that if it was our destiny to be together, we’d meet again. I have to admit at the time it pissed me off, and I left without being too upset about leaving him behind, but now… well, I keep finding myself thinking about him at odd times. Missing him.”

It had been a coincidence that Taichi had met Nagase. That coincidence had led to him meeting Joshima. It had been a coincidence that Mabo met this guy. That coincidence led to Taichi asking, “Is your name by happenchance Tatsuya?”

That got him a laugh. “I’d thought you were ignoring us when Mabo introduced me, but, yeah, you got it. It’s Yamaguchi Tatsuya, though you can call me Gussan if you’d rather.”

Taichi sat down hard in his chair, trying to get his head around how much his life sucked. “And what would your address be?”

The one Gussan told him matched Tatsuya twenty-five on the list. The perfect _destined_ end to their search. “And would the guy you’re looking for be Joshima Shigeru?”

Gussan’s mouth dropped open for a second, but then he smiled that bright, white smile again. “Mabo said you were good, but I thought he was just talking you up since he was your brother-in-law. But that’s it. That’s exactly who I’m looking for. I guess I just want to see if maybe he wasn’t wrong about the destiny thing.”

When Taichi started to laugh again, it was back to the crazy person one, verging right up on creepy, but he figured after his day, he really kind of deserved it.

~*~

As a promotion for his new drama, since he played a rock star, they’d scheduled Nagase with a live performance of the show’s opening theme on one of the music shows. Even though Nagase didn’t sing the song on the soundtrack, and even though it was just a one time thing, Nagase had jumped at the chance, having never quite gotten over not getting to debut. Joshima had to admit he understood, since it was still something he dreamed about.

What he didn’t understand was how the guitarist they’d hired for the performance had managed to break his hand playing soccer since (as far as Joshima knew, since he only pretended to like the sport to make Nagase stop trying to get him to actually like it) you weren’t supposed to use your hands while playing. When it turned out that the guitarist who’d played on the soundtrack wasn’t available either, and no one who actually was available knew the song, Joshima began to wonder if fate had it in for him. Maybe it was paying him back for doubting it in the first place.

When Nagase suggested that _Joshima_ play it, since he knew the song and could certainly play it well, he started to refuse, sure it was a bad idea. But the same dream that made Nagase happy about getting to perform made him stop and say, “Yeah, I’ll do it,” before racing around trying to look less like a manager and more like the rock star he’d always wanted to be. He was cursing the fact that none of Nagase’s clothes were ever going to fit, because the snot-nosed kid who’d been taller than him at sixteen, when they were just starting out together, was even more so now, the bastard, when Taichi showed up in front of him. 

For a moment Joshima was afraid that Taichi had come to make him doubt again, and he was doing a good enough job of that on his own, really, but all Taichi said was, “He missed you, too.”

Which made no sense, and Joshima had no time to puzzle it out, instead just pulling Taichi’s kind of beat up, but still way cooler than anything Joshima owned, leather jacket off the confused man and saying, “Just wait for me here, I’ll be back.”

~*~ 

Nagase had told Taichi that Joshima was a good guitarist. He’d even suggested that they bring him into the band Taichi, Mabo, and Nagase wanted to form. They were far too old to dream of debuting anymore, but all three of them missed the feel of playing in a band, the sounds you could make when everyone was together. Taichi hadn’t wanted Joshima, though, figuring that a guy who acted like he’d been middle-aged for decades, even though he’d just turned forty, wouldn’t really be all that cool.

Taichi had thought he’d already seen the reason Joshima had gotten into Johnny’s. The oddly cute face, the dorky charisma. But watching the live playing on the TV in the studio’s lobby, watching Joshima play the guitar like it was literally a part of him, Taichi had to wonder again why Johnny’s had ever let him go. It was like a siren’s call, a perfect counterpoint to Nagase’s emotionally evocative voice, and Taichi’s hands itched to be the one playing keyboard with them. Itched to be on that stage, just like he had when he was young.

When Joshima finally came back to hand him his jacket, he was still standing right where he’d been told to wait, hands twitching with the need to touch _something_ , but all Taichi said was, “Yamaguichi Tatsuya. I found him. Or rather he found you.”

~*~

“For years you’ve been bugging me about this destiny crap, and now when you finally have proof you were right, you’re chickening out like a…, um chicken thing.”

Joshima sighed for about the hundredth time. “You have a full schedule today. I don’t have time to go.”

Nagase sighed for about the hundred and first time. “I have hardly anything on my schedule, and Mabo already said he’d fill in for you if you wanted to go.”

“I…,” and Joshima didn’t know why he was hesitating. The man he’d been waiting for all this time was still thinking of him. Still wanted to see him even after the way Joshima had let him go, basically ending their relationship for a dream that hadn’t come true and a belief that Gussan hadn’t shared. But all he could do is repeat what he’d said a million times before. “If it’s destiny, it’ll work out.”

A box of Pocky hit him on the head. The men’s kind, which Nagase didn’t really like. Joshima opened the box and took one, knowing that if he ignored Nagase long enough, the kid would give up and go back to reading his script.

The chocolate was bittersweet, and he had to admit it fit his mood. He knew he was confusing his friend, but even though he was pleased Gussan had done okay for himself, making a good living off of selling surfing gear and playing around on the beach, and even though Mabo had told him he was definitely still hot, and with a body to match, Joshima just couldn’t seem to shake the idea that if he just waited, things would finally all fall into place.

It wasn’t until Nagase started reading his lines out loud that Joshima finally understood where he’d gone wrong. And finally knew what he had to do.

Nagase re-read the line, trying a different emphasis. “Destiny is made by taking fate into your own hands. Taking fate into your _own_ hands.”

He didn’t stop reading as Joshima left the trailer, hoping he wasn’t too late, but Joshima thought Nagase might have been smiling when he left.

~*~

It was the third call Taichi had got that day, and just as stupid as the other two. “No, I can’t find a first love _for_ you. I can only find the first love you’d already had and misplaced. And, fuck, it’s probably better for everyone if I don’t do that, either.”

He snapped his cell phone shut, not bothering to listen to whatever other stupid thing the idiot had to say. He had more important things to do, anyway, like playing Minesweeper on his computer, or seeing how far he could tilt his chair back before it fell over.

When he’d tilted just a little too back for the tenth time, winding up on the floor with a clatter of wood and _fucks_ , Mabo yelled at him. “Hey, I’m trying to work here.”

“You’re drawing porn, I don’t really think that counts as work.”

Mabo shrugged. “I have to admit it’s more fun than what most people do, but then I’m pretty sure that playing Minesweeper isn’t much on the work scale either. If you’re not going to actually help anyone in your theoretical line of business, why don’t you help me instead.”

Taichi was actually annoyed with himself enough to go over. “What do you need?”

“I’m debating some dialog, so listen to this. I’m going to have one of my characters finally grow some balls and tell his would-be lover, who’s still hung up over his old boyfriend, that, ‘First love doesn’t have to mean the first one you loved.’ What do you think of it?”

Even knowing subtlety wasn’t one of Mabo’s strong suits, Taichi had to admit that sometimes he outdid himself, being about as smooth as a flashing neon light. He said, “It’s garbage.”

Mabo threw his pen at him, and told him he should grow some balls on his head since he was such a dick, and a bunch of other things that Taichi didn’t wait around to hear as he headed out the door.

~*~

They were supposed to meet at the Budokan, a hall they’d both talked about playing when they’d been young and hopeful, lying on too small dorm-room beds and dreaming of the future. Boowy was long gone, Himuro living in the US now, but Glay was playing, and Gussan had told Taichi he’d be waiting out front until six. If Joshima came, he’d be happy. If Joshima didn’t, he’d go inside and let Joshima stay in his memory.

Joshima had broken pretty much every traffic rule, not to mention traumatized a number of other drivers on his way there, but at 5:57 he was in front of the hall, heart beating nearly out of his chest. It took him a moment in the crowd, and over the distance of twenty years, but he finally saw the still familiar face, scanning the crowd in between looking at his watch. There was a frown on that face, but it didn’t mar the hotness Mabo had been so right about, and that was even better than it had been when they were young.

Gussan started to look his way, and Joshima spun around, suddenly afraid to go through with it. But then he heard his name, that voice still familiar, too, and he turned back, face to face with the man he’d waited all those years for.

~*~

Taichi got to the hall just at six, wondering if he was too late and praying to any gods he could think of that he wasn’t. Fate was against him, or maybe all the gods hate him, because there in front of him was Joshima, and there hugging Joshima was Gussan. 

He couldn’t even say he was sorry, really. They’d waited so long for each other, even if Taichi did consider the whole thing stupid. It didn’t stop him from wishing he’d worked up his courage sooner, though. From wishing that this time he’d been able to say what he felt before the man he loved wound up with someone else. 

Walking away before he did something stupid, Taichi couldn’t help thinking that this destiny thing was a total bitch.

~*~

Nagase kicked Mabo as he looked around the huge crowd in front of the hall. “If you hadn’t been driving like a little old man, we’d have been here before the deadline. Now we’ll be lucky if we see them at all.”

Mabo kicked back. “I’m pretty sure Taichi and Joshima’s love life isn’t worth my dying over.”

Which Nagase had to give him, but he’d invested far more time in the whole thing than was really healthy, and now he needed to know if it was working out the way he hoped, or if he was going to have to play designated driver for one or the other of them.

Then he spotted something that looked like Joshima’s stupid ascot (and, really, who else would be wearing an ascot at a Glay concert) and he moved to get closer only to wind up tripping over a guy who also seemed to be moving that way, too.

Nagase pulled himself to his full height just in case the guy was heading that way either because he was homophobic or way too fashion-minded, but then he noticed the wistful look on the guy’s face. Since Joshima’s clothes sometimes made Nagase relive the embarrassment of his own bad fashion choices, Nagase thought maybe he should apologize properly after all. Especially since the guy was way hot, with arms that made Nagase’s look tiny, even with all the height he had on the guy. Just the way Nagase liked them.

When the guy turned to face him after his (very sweet if maybe a little flirty) apology, the wistful look turned into one of recognition mixed in with a little of _hey, he’s hot, too_ , which was also just the way Nagase liked them. Five minutes later, Joshima and Taichi totally forgotten, Nagase had an extra ticket to see Glay and a strong belief that it was his destiny to get lucky that night.

~*~

Before he could tell Gussan what he’d meant to say, Joshima caught sight of Taichi out of the corner of his eye. He turned back to Gussan and said, “Just wait for me here. I’ll be right back.”

Then he ran after Taichi, managing to catch him behind one of the outlying booths that was selling bootleg concert goods. Taichi just stared at him for a moment, obviously confused. “What are you doing here? I saw you with Yamaguchi.”

Jsohima shrugged. He could go into a long spiel about destiny and fate and taking things into your own hand and all the other things that were going through his head, but basically he just wanted to get down the making out as quickly as he could, so he simply said, “I wanted to start over,” and then created his destiny by taking Taichi in hand and kissing the hell out of him.

Which Taichi happily returned, not even stopping for air or sarcasm. 

Thankfully, since they were out in public, they were largely hidden behind a large sign, so they weren’t scandalizing anyone but the gap-toothed vendor who was selling the knockoff concert goods, and she just gave them a leer and two thumbs up. But after a while Taichi started to get enthusiastic enough that he either really was going to scandalize her, or else she was going to start taking pictures, which, considering the speculative gleam in her eye, might just wind up being sold along with the other bootleg items, so Joshima pulled back, finally catching his breath and saying, “We’ve got time. We’ve got plenty of time.”

Which made Taichi kiss him again, but Joshima (eventually) put a stop to that one, too. “I just want to set things right this time. I want to say goodbye properly like I didn’t do before.”

~*~

Taichi laughed when they got back to where Joshima had left Gussan. Apparently even though Taichi was whipped enough to wait exactly where Joshima had told him, Gussan had moved on to other prey, his arm discreetly touching another guy’s back as he led him through the entrance of the hall. The laughter stopped when he noticed something odd, though. “Hey wait a minute. Isn’t that Nagase? What’s he doing with your used-to-be boyfriend?”

Joshima smiled. “Gussan always did have a thing for tall guys. And Nagase always did work fast.”

“But he was just waiting for you, how can he be fucking Nagase like two seconds later?”

He could have pointed out that Gussan was just taking Nagase to a concert, and that the bouncers would likely frown on their actually fucking there, but, really (though he’d never admit it out loud), he loved Nagase and hoped he could find someone who would make him happy (even if he did finally have to start having a hidden relationship of his own), and he could still remember what it was like to love Gussan, and hoped he’d be happy as well, plus he really wanted to get on with the whole _his_ getting fucked part, so he just pulled Taichi along to the taxi stand and asked, “Keeping in mind that even an extra mile away is just that much longer until we can have sex, which one of our apartments is closer?”

~*~

Even with everything that had happened, Taichi still didn’t think he believed in destiny. But by the time they finally collapsed on the much rumpled bed, sticky and sore and feeling as good as a human can feel without spontaneously combusting, he thought he might just be ready to form a religion around sex.

He lay back on Joshima’s bed (not only the closer apartment, but the nicer mattress as well), and thought about how he didn’t feel restless for pretty much the first time in his life. He thought he could stay here without wondering if there was something better out there somewhere else. 

Taichi looked over and saw that Joshima was still awake and watching him. “I’m thinking about giving up the first love business," he told him. 

“Why, when you were doing so well? I have to admit it turned out to be less of a scam than Mabo had said it was.”

Reminding himself to beat the hell out of Mabo later, Taichi gave Joshima what he was sure was a really sappy smile. “I’ve found I’m more a fan of last loves, really.”

Which made Joshima snuggle up against him, something that Taichi would never have thought he’d be fond of, but that made him snuggle closer as well.

Just to show that he was still his same old self, though, he added, “And frankly it didn’t pay all that well.”

Joshima pinched him, but laughed all the same. “What are you going to do now, then?”

“Mabo, Nagase, and me are going to start a band. I play keyboards, you know, and Mabo can play drums. And my sister won’t mind, since it’ll keep Mabo out of the house even more. Nagase said he’d do vocals and rhythm guitar, and you can be our lead guitarist since you’d have to be with Nagase anyway and since you’re so good at it.”

Blushing at the praise and apparently amused at being co-opted into the whole thing, Joshima just smiled and nodded.

“All we need now is a bassist and a name for the band and we’re set.”

~*~

Joshima had been eyeing Taichi’s throat and wondering what the trickle of sweat inching down his Adam’s apple would taste like when all of a sudden he got goosebumps.

Hesitantly, sounding it out for himself more than Taichi, he said, “Gussan plays the bass. He was really good, too. And the name for the band we’d wanted to form for ourselves, back when we’d still thought we could debut, was TOKIO.”

Taichi looked at him, maybe thinking about how weird it would be to have a band with his boyfriend’s first love in it, maybe thinking that TOKIO was a lame name, but whatever he’d been thinking, all he said was, “It sounds like destiny.”

~*~

_Twenty-one years ago_

Taichi was just stepping out of the elevator when someone literally ran into him while trying to get on. The other person was at fault, so they should apologize, but they were older and taller and therefore unlikely to do so for one of their kouhai, even when they were the one in the wrong. Taichi knew that was just the way Johnny’s worked.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I should have been looking where I was going.”

Smiling at the unexpected bit of manners, Taichi looked at this unusual sempai closely. Hardly the best looking Junior he’d ever seen, but cute all the same, if a little old-fashioned looking. “I’m Taichi, who are you?”

After Taichi had asked, he remembered yet once again that some sempai didn’t like it when the younger kids talked to them or got noisy around them, but this one just grinned. “I’m Joshima, glad to meet you.”

Right about then they remembered that they had somewhere they were supposed to be, so they both took off, but Taichi turned back around just before the elevator doors closed and said, “Maybe I’ll see you later?”

Joshima was still grinning as he said, “You never know. We just might one day.”

/story


End file.
